1. Field of the Invention
The subject disclosure is directed to a system and method for providing transaction confirmations, and more particularly, to a system and method for providing trade confirmations to counter parties involved in a transaction over a distributed computing network.
2. Background of the Related Art
Portfolio managers deal with many collateral business issues arising out of daily investment practices. Many of these collateral business issues are seemingly simple procedural or administrative tasks. However, such tasks are often delayed during the course of the day while focusing on other more challenging matters. Although delaying these simple tasks may appear innocuous, the consequences of failing to properly address them may have devastating business and legal implications.
The potential for liability is especially high when portfolio managers handle transactions (also referred to as “trades”) involving financial instruments in portfolios in their care. The term “portfolio managers” as used herein generally refers to the agents that effectuate the terms of a transaction involving financial instruments (i.e., transfer of ownership, receipt of money, etc.) for portfolios of financial instruments owned by others. For the portfolio manager, maintaining records of transactions and confirming all details of the transactions prior to their execution is a prudent business practice, if not one required by law.
In the past when counter parties agreed on the terms of a transaction, the information would be sent independently by both counter parties to the portfolio manager for execution. The portfolio manager would then manually match the information received, which may have been sent by facsimile at different times during the day.
The volume of transactions within any given day may be extremely high. Indeed, there may be thousands of trades affecting thousands of portfolios under the portfolio manager's care. Thus, the portfolio manager must continually check through the many sets of transaction information (i.e., one from each counter party) to find matching sets. In the past when a match was found, the portfolio manager would confirm the transaction with the counter party by either telephone or facsimile. Typically, the manager would also send a document containing the transaction details to one or both of the parties for their signature. The executed document would then be returned and kept as a record of their confirmation.
In the situation where the portfolio manager is one of the transacting counter parties, or an associate of the same organization or entity as one of the counter parties, the transaction matching and confirmation process varied only slightly. Generally, obtaining additional documentation illustrating confirmation of a transaction would be requested only of the other non-associated transacting party.
The extremely fast pace operation of the financial industry makes obtaining confirmations difficult. A high volume of trades involving various amounts of financial instruments occur daily, altering the assets in a substantial number of portfolios, which makes the process of matching and confirming transactions inconvenient, unreliable, and time-consuming for all parties involved.
Consequently, there exists a need for a system and method for receiving transaction information, and matching and confirming the transactions in a more convenient, reliable, and efficient manner which is likely to be complied with by all those involved.